I imported loads of photos into Lightroom (172). I then made a subfolder or collection as its called in the app of all my favourite photos (32) which I then rated out of 5 stars, this app was really useful to help arrange my photos into groups and get them all sorted.
What is Lightroom used for?
Adobe Lightroom is a photo editing and storage application available through the Adobe Creative Cloud. This program allows users to quickly and easily edit their photographs with tools to alter contrast, balance colour, and change brightness on mobile devices immediately after taking the picture.
This is my contact sheet
In the top left I selected the photos I wanted and then pressed print
I then selected this template for my photos to go in
Shutter speed works with the aperture to allow light in to the camera lens whilst also effecting movement.
Harold Edgerton– fast shutter speed – in 1931 worked with a stroboscope. By matching strobe flashes with the motion being examined he would take many photos through an open shutter at the rate of lots of flashes per second. This led to Edgerton inventing ultra-high-speed and stop-action photography.
Francesca Woodman – slow shutter speed– was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred, merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured
shutter speed its the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. When using a fast shutter speeds it creates a shutter exposer. It controls the amount of light that the camera takes in. 1/500 works best for wildlife, sports and action photography. 1/250 works best for slower movements for example people people walking, animals moving. 1/125 its excellent the photograph moving vehicles. 1/60- This is the standard shutter speed on a camera.
photographs taken with slow shutter speed found on the internet:
photographs taken with a fast shutter speed found on the internet :
photographs we took using shutter speed for the first time:
fast shutter speed:
slow shutter speed:
photographing balls in the air until if forms a line challenges:
best one:
I think this photograph is the beast because the balls are really close to forming a line which was the initial propose , i also think that because the sky was dray the balls contrast really well with the sky.
photo after editing:
trying out with shutter speed for the second time
pictures taken with medium shutter speed: 1/30
pictures taken sung a low shutter speed: 1/2
Experimenting using low shutter speed:
we had an idea to draw some shapes with the flash using low shutter speed and it worked really well
all the pictures taken:
editing on photoshop:
On photoshop I made the picture black and white because I wanted the attention to be on the red light. So after I edited my picture black and white I erased the black and white filter so only the background would be black and white and the light would continue red.
Shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes, determining the period during which the sensor is exposed to light. A longer exposure time allows more light to reach the sensor, resulting in a brighter image – controlling and adapting shutter speed is crucial for capturing either sharp images of moving things or exploring creative blurring in moving things.
Fast shutter speed
Fast shutter speeds, at 1/500th of a second or faster, will freeze and capture quick-moving action – so you get a clean image of a subject that would otherwise be blurred.
Slow shutter speed
A slow shutter speed can help you illuminate a darker scene, as it brings more light through the lens. But with a faster shutter speed, the lens is open for a shorter length of time, so less light enters the lens. That makes low light a challenge and demonstrates the importance of a well-lit scene.
Eadweard Muybridge
Muybridge would take his photographic discoveries on tours across America and Europe. During his lifetime he advanced the chemicals that develop film. He quickened camera shutter speed to a fraction of a second. And by aiming dozens of lenses at the same subject, he found ways to stop time and stretch it like elastic.
This is one of Eadweard Muybridge’s work in which he has used fast shutter speed to capture every moment of the horse’s jump.
Harold Edgerton
Edgerton experimented with shutter speed by synchronizing strobe flashes with the motion being examined (for example, the spinning of engine rotors), then taking a series of photos through an open shutter at the rate of many flashes per second, Edgerton invented ultra-high-speed and stop-action photography in 1931.
This piece shows how Edgerton used slow shutter speed to capture the movement of the racket.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Sugimoto refers to his signature photographic style as “time exposed.” He plays with shutter speeds other photographers struggle to master. His goal with these experiments is, in part, to create time capsules of events and to reveal the paradoxes of time. Sugimoto’s signature style is his use of an 8 x 10 large-format camera combined with extremely long exposure times. This style exemplifies Sugimoto’s mastery of photographic techniques and has contributed to his fame and recognition as an artist.
Sugimoto’s photographs reveal his reverence for technique. They are primarily in black and white, and often made with an analogue large-format camera. These are images made with intent; carefully planned, and often slowly executed. Sugimoto’s work engages with the history of photographic materials and processes.
Francesca Woodman
Woodman used long shutter speed and double exposure when photographing so that she could actively feature in her own work. This also meant that she could capture different stages of movement, in a way that could trace the pattern of time. As a result, her image is blurred, which suggests motion and urgency. Woodman uses long shutter speeds from 1/2 – 5 seconds, as a self portrait photographer this is important and very clever, Woodman uses long shutter speeds to suggest her slow progression through life with a mental illness. as she has long shutter speeds her photographs show the movement of her body (motion blur).
During her career, Woodman produced over 800 black and white photographs. She featured as the subject in many of them, sometimes partially clothed, naked, disguised, hidden or a blur. She used ordinary objects and materials, such as mirrors and pegs, to transform her body parts into distorted and surreal versions.
Effects of changing shutter speed
A slow shutter speed can illuminate a darker scene, as it brings more light through the lens. With a fast shutter speed, the lens is open for less time, so less light can enter. That makes low light a challenge and demonstrates the importance of a well-lit scene. Slower shutter speeds get you blurry lights and motion-blur effects. Think blurry headlights on a highway or artsy light trails. Conversely, faster shutter speeds let you freeze motion with little to no blurriness. Picture an athlete running on a field, perfectly sharp and paused in time. If you’re shooting in lower light, however, faster shutter speeds can require you to increase your ISO which can add unwanted noise or grain to your image.
Class Photoshoot
These are some images from our class photoshoot that is presented in the style of Francesca Woodman, in which we used a slow shutter speed to create almost a ghostly image in black and white.
The camera obscura is a darkened box with a convex lens that projects the image of an external object to a screen inside. The way it works is when its bright outside light enters through the hole and projects an upside down image onto a wall opposite the hole, therefore only focusing and reflecting light instead of capturing it. This was the starting point leading to all photography. In the 1600’s the camera obscura was developed with larger openings, allowing more light available to come through which created brighter, higher quality images. This was useful for capturing perspective such as accurately representing the 3D world into a 2D flat surface.
Henry Fox Talbot
Henry was well known for being the inventor of the calotype. In 1884 henry discovered that images could be made through the action of light and chemistry on paper. He discovered that from the use of different silver salt and a developing agent brings out an invisibility slight on exposed paper. This photographic process made it possible to obtain multiple positive images on paper from a single paper negative. This was a step up from the camera obscura as images could now be captured. However, this still had some downsides due to the paper fibres blurring the printed image.
Daguerreotype Process
The daguerreotype process was invented in 1837 by Louis Jacques Daguerre. The daguerreotype process links back to the camera obscura as it allowed the image seen inside a camera obscura to be captured and preserved as an object. This process is a direct positive process which means no negative is made unlike the calotype discovery. The process of making a daguerreotype is by plating a thin sheet of silver onto a copper sheet. Then it is sensitized into a lightbox containing iodine and bromine vapours until its surface turns yellow creating a reaction producing light sensitive silver iodine. it is then inserted into a camera where the exposure is made and then development happens when the plate is placed face down over a source of heated mercury fumes until the image appears. This made it possible for a portrait to be made with exposure in around a minute. However, this process meant the daguerreotypes were mirrors images of their subjects.
Richard Maddox
Richard Maddox was an English physician who is known for inventing lightweight gelatin negatives plates for photography in 1871. There were many advantages to this dry plate such as making it easier for photographers. This is because it allowed photographers to use dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom. In addition to this, cameras were small enough to be handheld. These dry plates is what led to cinematography from snapshot photography.
George Eastman
George Eastman, an American entrepreneur who was born in 1854 and founded in the Eastman Kodak company. In the 1880’s, made improvement leading to flexible, roll film and photo processing and printing done by mail order. He created a convenient method of preparing ready to use plates. Eastman His business had 4 basic principles which included focusing on the customer, creating mass production at low cost, achieving worldwide distribution and extensive advertising. He achieved this with the help of his slogan ‘you press the button, we do the rest’. His first camera the ‘Kodak’ was first offered for sale in 1888. The Kodak is considered the first camera brand and was so successful due to the company heavily investing in campaigns creating widespread awareness of the Kodak
Kodak Brownie
The kodak brownie was a popular series of cameras formed by the Eastman Kodak company. This camera ultimately revolutionised photography due to the cameras being affordable and simple to use. Also, the kodak enabled anybody to create photography with a press of a button.
A Slow shutter speed setting allows a greater amount of light to enter, and a Fast shutter speed setting reduces the amount of light. Changing your camera’s shutter speed is one way to adjust the overall exposure of an image. But it also has creative uses, allowing you to control the amount of motion blur (or lack of it) in your images.
The slower the shutter speed, the more motion blur your camera will capture when shooting fast-moving subjects. With long shutter speeds from two to 30 seconds, any movement in the image will blur. This can create a cool effect with landscapes and the sky, as water and clouds turn soft and streaky.
When we take a picture, the camera’s shutter opens to allow light to reach the recording medium, where an an image is created. By controlling how long the shutter stays open, we can control what the resulting image looks like.
Also known as ‘exposure time’, shutter speed is measured in seconds or fractions of a second (tenths, hundredths, or thousands). For example, a slow shutter speed of 1/2 means the shutter remains open for half a second, while a faster speed of 1/2000 means it only remains open for one-two-thousandth of a second.
Useful Shutter Speeds for daily interactions
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection.
Muybridge’s work consisted of pioneering chrono photography of animal locomotion (between 1878 and 1886), which used multiple cameras to capture the different positions in a stride; and for his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting painted motion pictures from glass discs that predated the flexible perforated film strip.
Doc Edgerton
Harold Eugene “Doc” Edgerton, also known as Papa Flash, was an American scientist and researcher, a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device.
By 1931, Edgerton had developed a system of stroboscopic light to achieve amazingly sharp high-speed photographs, as well as multi-shot photographs to freeze different stages of a single movement on a single photogram, and the same year he obtained a PhD in Electrical Engineering from MIT.
Edgerton revolutionized photography, science, military surveillance, Hollywood filmmaking, and the media through his invention of the strobe light in the early 1930s.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory.
His use of an 8×10 large-format camera and extremely long exposures has garnered Sugimoto a reputation as a photographer of the highest technical ability. He is equally acclaimed for the conceptual and philosophical aspects of his work.
Sugimoto has spoken of his work as an expression of ‘time exposed’, or photographs serving as a time capsule for a series of events in time. His work also focuses on transience of life, and the conflict between life and death.
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Stern Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred, merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured.
Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred (due to movement and long exposure times), merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured.
My plan to achieve Shutter Speed images inspired by Francesca Woodman
There are many creative ways to achieve Shutter Speed when taking photographs. Since I am at school and have a limited amount of resources to produce these “Fast and Slow” Shutter speeds, I will be doing the following…
Wait for Cars to past by
Get a friend to ride their Mo-ped or Motorcycle down the car park
Francesca Woodman was an American photographer known for her haunting black-and-white images that often feature ethereal, ghostly figures in enigmatic environments. Born in 1958, she began experimenting with photography as a teenager and developed a unique style that combined elements of surrealism and conceptual art.
One of the distinctive aspects of Woodman’s work is her innovative use of shutter speed. She frequently employed long exposures, which allowed her to create a sense of movement and fluidity in her images. This technique often resulted in blurred figures or partial representations of the human form, contributing to an atmosphere of mystery and introspection. The long exposure times also emphasized the interplay between light and shadow, enhancing the emotional depth of her photographs.
Woodman’s images often explore themes of identity, femininity, and the body, reflecting her own struggles with self-image and mental health. Her work is deeply personal, often featuring herself or other women in intimate, vulnerable poses, surrounded by decaying interiors or natural settings.
Though Woodman’s career was tragically cut short when she died at 22, her work has had a lasting impact on contemporary photography, influencing many artists who seek to convey emotion and narrative through visual experimentation. Her legacy continues to resonate, with exhibitions and publications keeping her vision alive in the art world.
Some of my pieces inspired by Woodman’s work
– Last Photo taken by Ollie Fus
To achieve these blurry images, we needed to use a very low shutter speed which in doing, means that the shutter is open for a longer period of time, so it lets more light in and when an subject is moving in the frame with a low shutter speed set, the images appears blurry. This is because if the shutter speed is set to one second, and the subject is moving during the whole time period, the camera tries to capture that whole sequence into once single image, therefore it shows all the motion – hence the motion blur.
– All images shot between 1″ – 5″ second shutter speed
Photos inspired by Francesca Woodman – using the studio
shutter speed – the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure — the amount of light the camera takes in —while a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure.
Low shutter speeds are used for scenarios where the lighting in the area is low, This is because the camera needs more time to capture the light so that the photo is not too dark or unreadable due to the lack of exposure. As shown in the diagram below, the camera needs more time to properly adjust to the light in the scene in order to avoid over exposure as seen in the photo taken at a shutter speed of 1/2.
On the other hand, Higher shutter speeds are excellent at freezing and capturing fast paced moments which are usually impossible to see just through the use of eyes, for example, attempting to capture water droplets in movement or a car mid f1 race.
A fast shutter speed, say, in the 1/500th second range, will freeze the water and give it a gnarly, crunchy look. A long, multi-second shutter speed will make waterfalls look silky and veil-like. Both looks can work, but what looks best will depend on the subject and your personal preferences as a photographer.
( 1/45 sec shutter speed) (130 second shutter speed)
The general rule for the shutter speed when it comes to astrophotography is to go with anything between 10 and 30 seconds depending on your focal length. The longer the shutter speed you use, the lower the ISO you can use but using a shutter speed too long can result in blurry stars due to the Earth’s rotation.
Slow shutter speeds and long exposures enable you to create motion blur in your photos. Again, the speed of the moving object will determine how slow the shutter speed needs to be.
Photographers known for shutter speed.
Eadweard Muybridge
is celebrated for his ground-breaking studies of motion, which laid the groundwork for the development of cinema. He was commissioned to capture a horse’s movement to demonstrate that its hooves are off the ground during a trot.
Between 1878 and 1886, Muybridge conducted pioneering chrono photography of animal locomotion, employing multiple cameras to capture various positions within a stride. He also invented the zoopraxiscope, a device that projected painted motion pictures from glass discs, predating the use of flexible perforated film strips in cinematography.
Harold Edgerton
Harold Edgerton was an American electrical engineer and photographer known for his pioneering work in high-speed photography. He developed techniques and equipment that allowed for the capture of fast-moving subjects, revealing details that the human eye could not see.
His iconic images include a bullet piercing an apple and the moment a drop of milk splashes into a pool, showcasing the beauty and complexity of motion. Edgerton’s innovations in strobe lighting and high-speed cameras not only advanced photography but also contributed to scientific research in fields like physics and biology, making him a significant figure in both art and science.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer known for his striking and contemplative works that explore themes of time, memory, and the nature of reality. His most famous series include “Theaters,” featuring long-exposure images of classic movie houses, and “Seascapes,” capturing the tranquil beauty of oceans across different locations and times.
Sugimoto’s use of long exposure creates a sense of timelessness, blurring the lines between the past and present. His work often invites viewers to reflect on the passage of time and the relationship between the observer and the observed, making him a significant figure in contemporary photography.
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman was a groundbreaking photographer known for her evocative and surreal images, many of which were taken at her family’s farmhouse near Florence, Italy. Her upbringing in a culturally rich environment deeply influenced her artistic development, drawing inspiration from surrealist artists like Man Ray and Claude Cahun.
Woodman honed her skills at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she began to explore complex themes of identity and the human experience. In the 1970s, a time when photography was often undervalued compared to painting and sculpture, her innovative approach helped elevate the medium. Woodman’s work paved the way for future American photographers, such as Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin, who similarly examined identity and self-representation in their art.
Here’s a quick summary of shutter speed guidelines:
Shutter Speed Rule: As a general rule, your shutter speed should be double (or more) the focal length of your lens. For instance, with a 50mm lens, aim for at least 1/100th of a second, and for a 75mm lens, at least 1/150th of a second.
Slow Shutter Speed: A slow shutter speed keeps the shutter open longer, allowing more light to hit the sensor. This can lead to motion blur for moving objects and is useful for low-light situations or when you want to capture the sense of movement in a scene.
Shutter Speed Shoot
The focus of this shoot was to experiment with different shutter speed and how it effects movement.
I begun the selection process with 100 pictures, in order to compress this less photos I will use the PnX process to select which photos I want to keep and which I want to discard.
Using the PnX process, I cut down to 24 photos, now I will repeat this process and pick out the best couple photos which I will present.
Here I am using the X/Y feature to compare the two images, once I am satisfied with one I will simply press X on one of them to discard them of the view.
Final set of images which I will use on the blog, the star system also allowed me to decide between images which I prefer and which ones I dislike.
Final Pieces.
(Edited in Lightroom)
Using a fast shutter speed ( 1/125) , I captured the red ball in mid-air, suspended between the trees, creating a striking contrast against the natural backdrop. The high shutter speed froze the motion perfectly, allowing the ball to appear crisp and sharp, avoiding any motion blur and emphasizing the vibrant red against the greenery.
In this image, the use of a 4-second shutter speed creates an ethereal, ghostly effect, capturing multiple overlapping exposures of my model ( Alfie) as he shifts slightly during the long exposure. The soft blur adds a sense of motion, almost as if the subject is moving through time, creating a surreal, dreamlike quality. The background, filled with books and papers, remains relatively sharp, while the subject’s face is duplicated thrice across the frame, producing a unique layering effect that conveys both motion and stillness. The dim lighting enhances the mood, giving the image a mysterious and slightly abstract feeling.
I used a long exposure to capture the subject as they spun around, creating a dramatic, distorted effect. The 4-second shutter speed allowed for the body to blur and stretch across the frame, making the subject appear as though they’re being pulled in multiple directions. The spinning motion produced a swirling effect where limbs and the head melt into each other, resulting in a fluid, abstract form. The contrast between the still background and the distorted body creates a surreal, dreamlike quality, emphasizing the movement in an almost otherworldly manner.
In this attempt, I aimed to capture a subtle motion by having the subject move only their head during the long exposure. However, the experiment didn’t go as planned—the subject moved their head too rapidly and inconsistently, causing the entire head to blur into an almost ghostly smear. Instead of a distinct motion trail or soft blur, the head nearly vanished from the frame, creating a strange, disjointed image where the body remains sharply in focus but the head has become a faint, formless blur. This unintended effect results in a surreal, eerie composition where the absence of a clear head makes the subject appear almost headless, adding an unintentional element of distortion and mystery to the photograph.
In this shot, I used a long shutter speed combined with cold lighting, but unlike previous attempts, there was no movement from the subject. By staying perfectly still throughout the exposure, the subject remains sharp and clear, with no motion trails or blurring. The cool-toned lighting adds a stark, almost clinical atmosphere to the image. The long exposure doesn’t introduce any distortion or ghostly effects—instead, it enhances the stillness. The focus is sharp across the entire frame, capturing every texture and detail in both the subject and the surroundings, resulting in a crisp photograph. The
In this image, the fast shutter speed perfectly captures three tennis balls suspended in mid-air, seemingly frozen against the plain background of the sky. The high shutter speed ensures there is no motion blur, allowing the balls to appear sharp and crisp as if they are floating in a straight, horizontal line. The simple, cloudy sky creates a minimalistic backdrop, drawing all attention to the alignment of the tennis balls, emphasizing their identical positions and uniform spacing. The fast shutter speed essentially freezes time, giving the impression that the balls are defying gravity, creating a balanced and clean composition that plays with movement and precision.
Shutter speed refers to the duration for which the camera’s shutter remains open, determining the period during which the sensor is exposed to light. A longer exposure time allows more light to reach the sensor, resulting in a brighter image – controlling and adapting shutter speed is crucial for capturing either sharp images of moving things or exploring creative blurring in moving objects.
Examples of Slow Shutter Speed Images:
Using a slower shutter speed means more light hits the camera due to the shutter being open for longer, which can create these motion blurs when photographing fast movement (such as cars). These blurs can be intentional, but if unintentional the shutter speed should be increased to remove them. In these two examples a slow shutter speed was used when photographing cars which led to these blurs, making it seem like the cars are driving past at extremely high speeds.
Examples of Fast Shutter Speed Images:
Faster shutter speeds mean the shutter is open for smaller amounts of time which consequently limits the amount of light that can hit the camera – this reduces blurs and increases sharpness of an image, which is good for capturing sharp images of movement (such as athletes running). In these two examples a fast shutter speed was used to take sharp images of fast movement, such as the bird’s wings flapping or the shattered glass flying in all directions.
Key Figures of Fast Shutter Speed – Muybridge and Edgerton
Eadweard Muybridge is known for his groundbreaking photographic investigations into motion, which significantly contributed to the development and rise of cinema. He was commissioned to capture the movement of a horse in order to demonstrate that a horse’s hooves are elevated from the ground during a trot.
A photo taken by Muybridge, in which he proves a horse’s hooves are elevated from the ground during a trot
Muybridge is also famous for his work in chronophotography, where he studied how animals move from 1878 to 1886. He used several cameras to take pictures of animals at different stages of their movement. He also created the zoopraxiscope, a machine that projected painted moving images from glass discs, which came before the flexible film strips we use in movies today.
Harold Eugene Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990) was an American scientist and researcher who taught electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is well-known for turning the stroboscope from a little-known lab tool into a widely used device. Additionally, he played a significant role in creating sonar technology and deep-sea photography. His inventions were used alongside Jacques Cousteau in efforts to find shipwrecks and even the Loch Ness Monster.
A photo taken by Harold Edgerton using fast shutter speed, 1964
Key Figures of Slow Shutter Speed – Sugimoto and Woodman
Marcel Duchamp, a key figure in early 20th-century Cubism and Dadaism, had a significant impact on Sugimoto’s ideas about art and the concept of time. Sugimoto frequently uses large format cameras and long exposure techniques to photograph light as it acts in predictable yet controlled manners.
A series of slow shutter speed images taken by Sugimoto
Francesca Woodman’s family would spend their summers at their farmhouse in the countryside close to Florence, Italy, where she took many of her photographs. The rich European culture and art greatly influenced her artistic growth. You can see the impact of surrealist artists like Man Ray and Claude Cahun in her work, especially in the themes and style she chose. She honed her ideas and skills while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design; her role as an innovator is really important, especially in the 1970s when photography was often seen as less valuable than painting and sculpture. She paved the way for future American artists, like Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin, who used photography to delve into themes of identity.
Above is a photo I took inspired by Francesca Woodman – I have used a slow shutter speed on a passing car to achieve the ghostly and abstract atmosphere of her work, where the car is hardly recognisable and just a blur. I then edited it in Photoshop to make it black and white similar to Woodman’s work, and corrected the photo as it was slightly overexposed.
Photo taken at 1/3 sec exposure time
This is a similar photo I took, however I think this one wasn’t as great since you can still clearly recognise it is a car, so I think it hasn’t successfully captured the abstract feeling of Woodman’s work. I also didn’t have the camera mounted on a tripod in this photo which resulting in a lot of unintentional motion blur in the surroundings.
Class Photoshoot
All the photos taken during the class photoshoot
Above are a few most successful images from the class photoshoot, using a low shutter speed to create an abstract and almost ghostly image (edited in Photoshop by me to be black and white). These are the four most successful pictures in my opinion since none of them were too over/underexposed and each one intentionally used a long exposure time to successfully capture the abstract atmosphere of images by photographers such as Francesca Woodman.
In photography, shutter speed, also known as exposure time, refers to how long the camera’s film or digital sensor is exposed to light while taking a picture. This happens when the camera’s shutter is open. The longer the exposure time, the more light hits the film or sensor. For example, an exposure time of 1/500 of a second allows in half as much light as an exposure time of 1/250 of a second.
Fast vs slow shutter speed
Slow ——————————–Fast
Important Photographers
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge (April 9, 1830 – May 8) was a British photographer recognized for his ground-breaking contributions to the study of motion through photography, as well as his early discoveries in motion-picture projection. Muybridge is mostly famous for his work in chronophotography, which he did between 1878 and 1886. He used several cameras to take pictures of animals in motion, showing the different stages of their strides. He also created the zoopraxiscope, a machine that projected painted moving images from glass discs, which came before the flexible film strips used in movies. From 1883 to 1886, he had a super productive time at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he took over 100,000 images of both animals and people moving, sometimes capturing moments that were too quick for the human eye to see as separate.
Example of his work
Harold Edgerton
Harold Eugene “Doc” Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990), often called Papa Flash, was an American scientist and researcher who taught electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is well-known for changing the stroboscope from a little-known lab tool into a widely used device. Additionally, he played a significant role in creating sonar technology and deep-sea photography. His inventions were used alongside Jacques Cousteau in efforts to find shipwrecks and even the legendary Loch Ness Monster.
Example of his work
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hiroshi Sugimoto, born on February 23, 1948, is a renowned photographer and architect from Japan. He is the head of an architectural firm called New Material Research Laboratory, which is located in Tokyo. Sugimoto describes his art as a way to show ‘time exposed,’ meaning his photographs act like a time capsule that captures various moments. His work highlights the fleeting nature of life and the struggle between existence and mortality. Additionally, Sugimoto draws significant inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s writings and the broader Dadaist and Surrealist movements. He has also shown a strong fascination with modern architecture from the late 20th century.
Example of his work
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Stern Woodman (April 3, 1958 – January 19, 1981) was a talented American photographer famous for her striking black and white images that often included herself or other female models. A lot of her photos depict women, either nude or dressed, appearing blurred because of movement and long exposure times. This creates a unique effect where they seem to blend into their environments, and sometimes their faces are hidden. Even years after her tragic passing at just 22 in 1981, her work still receives a lot of praise and attention from critics.
Example of her work
Example I’ve made of how shutter speed effects exposure.
1/4000 sec. (under exposed)
1/250 sec. (sharp)
1/3 sec. (motion blur)
30 sec. (over exposed)
These 4 photos show the difference between different shutter speeds.
My long exposure photos
My best long exposure photos
F/22. 1/3 sec. ISO-100.
F/36. 1 sec. ISO-100.
F/22. 1 sec. ISO-100.
The photos shown above are some of the best photos I took using a long shutter speed. To create this I used a tripod to keep everything in focus and then used a long shutter speed.
Black and white edited
Editing my images to black and white means that the photos follow the style of Francesca Woodman more closely.
Overall thoughts and evaluation
I believe this photoshoot went really well. The motion blur in my final pictures looks awesome, and the extra editing, like the black and white effect, made my images even better. I feel like I realistically replicated Woodman’s photos with my own twist on the photos, being the cars instead of people.
